There is a conventional electrical connector whose housing incorporates a plurality of contacts and which is to be fixed tightly on a circuit board with bolts and nuts. For such a connector, it is a customary design practice that nuts are press-fit into and fixed at predetermined positions of the housing during the assembly of the connector before the connector is actually installed on a circuit board. This type of connector simplifies the process of assembling the connector on a circuit board. Because the nuts are already provided at predetermined positions of the connector, the connector placed on a circuit board can be fixed simply by putting bolts through pre-arranged through-holes of the circuit board.
Because this connector needs a strength to withstand the press-fitting of the nuts at the predetermined positions of the housing, the housing must be designed to have a sufficient thickness. As a result, the external dimensions of the housing are relatively large, so it is difficult to miniaturize the connector. Furthermore, in an assembly process where this type of connector is mounted on a circuit board, the contacts of the connector are placed directly on solder-coated connection terminals of electrical pathways of a circuit, which is printed on the circuit board, and then the connector and the circuit board in this condition are heated together in a furnace to fuse the solder and thereby to connect the contacts of the connector to the corresponding pathways of the circuit on the circuit board ( surface-mounting process ). If the above mentioned connector with nuts press-fit in the housing is heated in a furnace, then the resin forming the housing is somewhat relieved of the stress that resulted from the press-fitting of the nuts, so, accordingly, the force holding the nuts in the housing of the connector is reduced. This condition may result in one or all of the nuts to fall off from the housing.